Week 9 Update

Hi there,

We have had another great week to finish off our first half term of study in Year 3. Nine weeks is a long time to go without a break and we have been impressed with how well the children have responded. We hope they all have a restful and fun holiday.

This week was another busy one including an interesting cultural trip to the Bangkoo Shrine to learn about the upcoming vegetarian festival. Thanks to our Thai teachers for organising this great experience for them.

As we are approaching the end of our Light topic we had some fun creating rainbows both in our class and outside on the playground. There was a suitable amount of amazement as the children discovered how rainbows work.

In Maths we continued to learn new strategies for subtraction and applied these skills to solving word problems. You may have seen some evidence of this on your child's Seesaw account.

In Literacy, each child has now written their own set of instructions, focusing on one of four suggested topics: Making a Sandwich, Logging on to a MacBook, Washing Hair or Making Monster Soup. Have a chat with your child and see if they can explain to you how to complete the task.

We also enjoyed visiting the Year 6 Exhibition.

Next week is the half term holiday. School will start again on Monday 30th October.  After school activities will remain the same as they have been for the first half term.

Also please remember that each student needs a pair of black school shoes and a hat as a part of their school uniform though the hat can be either from school or from home.

Notice from the Library:

The children have had an opportunity to use an exciting app called Epic! It has an incredible range of really great books, magazines, audio-books, read-alongs and informational videos. The children were all very interested in it and we have been given a discounted rate for home use as detailed below. This is a great opportunity for reluctant readers to start finding things they enjoy reading.

Important Notice: Final Plea for Headphones

Hi there,

I hope you have had a great long weekend. I just wanted to make one final reminder to ask you to ensure that your child has a pair of headphones with them to use for school tomorrow (Monday October 16th) and Tuesday. We will be doing some online assessments this week and each child having a pair of simple headphones is essential for the task. Any type will do so long as they can be plugged into a standard 3.5 mm outlet on a computer/iPad.

Basic pairs can be purchased for 100 Baht or less in Big C, Tesco/Lotus and pretty much every convenience store around. Please do make sure that your child has a pair as we can not provide them at school due to factors of hygiene.

Many thanks and see you tomorrow!

Week 8 Update

Dear Parents,

Its been a shorter 4 day week, but we have achieved a lot of learning. In topic we have been investigating the way light helps us see. We have also investigated reflective and non-reflective materials and discussed why this occurs.

In Literacy we have been developing our 'Procedure' writing skills, with a focus on visual literacy, use of adverbs and understanding simple and compound sentences.

In Maths we have been learning about the concept of subtraction. We have explored subtraction using concrete objects and began to use the 'counting back on the number line' method. The tricky part was bridging through 10.  We will be practicing this more next week.

Notices

Headphones - Please bring headphones to school on Monday. We are doing some online assessments and we must all have access to headphones. Thank you for supporting this.

P.E. - This was the final week of swimming. 3PJ will now start a unit on basketball. Please wear P.E. kit and appropriate, non-marking trainers.

Library - Wednesday, October 20, the library will close at 2.30pm as we will be setting up for the Elephant & Piggie Party.

Loy Krathong - On Friday the 3rd of November the children will be taking part in our special Loy Krathong celebrations. All children are encouraged to come to school in Thai costume.  Therefore, during the week commencing 16th October, BISP will be operating a Thai costume shop in the Primary Foyer from 2.00pm - 4.30pm.

Message from the Thai Department

Dear Parents,

On Friday the 3rd of November the children will be taking part in our special Loy Krathong celebrations. All children are encouraged to come to school in Thai costume.

Therefore, during the week commencing 16th October, BISP will be operating a Thai costume shop in the Primary Foyer from 2.00pm - 4.30pm.

Week 7 Update

Dear Parents,

It has been another busy week of learning in Year 3. We would like to say a big thank you to all the parents who came to the 'Goal Setting' meetings. The children did an excellent job sharing their learning and what their next steps are. If you could not make it this week then please try and schedule a meeting for next week.

We have been investigating shadows in this weeks Topic work. We began exploring shadows with light boxes, plastic animal shadows and hand puppet shadows. We then became scientists and investigated the question - At what time of day are shadows the longest? Most children predicted they would be longest at lunch time, so there was great surprise and excitement to find out the opposite was true.

In Literacy, we have been learning how to write procedural instructions for a video of 'How to Wash Your Dog'. We focused on using imperative verbs, adverbs, numbered sequences and visual literacy to develop our instruction writing skills.

In Maths, we have been applying all the strategies we have learnt to addition word problems. We have focused on Concrete, Representational and Abstract methods for solving addition problems and we encourage the children to find the way that works best for them. We have refrained from teaching the formal column method for addition at this stage of the year as it is vital the children have a secure conceptual understanding of the addition process first.

Notices

Friday 13th October - School closed.

Friday 20th October - Last day of school before half term holidays.

Monday 30th October - First day back at school.

Week 6 Update

Dear Parents,

Another great week of learning completed!

This week in Literacy the children began to think about the genre of writing known as 'Procedure'. All of Year 3 watched Mr Jackson make some delicious jam on toast. The children listened to the instructions that he gave and then wrote the procedure up as their pre-assessment. We were impressed that so many children knew some of the features that are needed to write a procedure. The children have looked at, and read different procedures, taking note of the features used in this genre of writing. The children have noted the features of a procedure, and hopefully will begin  to include these when writing more procedures in the following weeks.

In Maths, we have continued to work on solving addition using a range of strategies. The children have been adding using concrete objects, visual diagrams such as constructing a number line, and have begun to use the more formal written method. Different children feel more comfortable using different strategies and we are encouraging them to choose a strategy that works for them to solve addition problems.

In Topic, the children became scientists. They planned a fair test to find out if plants need light to live and wrote up the investigation. The children thought up a relevant question, the materials needed, the procedure and decided what the variables would be. One plant has been placed in a dark cupboard and the other next to the window. The children are responsible for watering the plants with the same amount of water, making careful observations and recording their findings daily. Let's hope for some good results!

Can we remind you that next week is 3 Way Student-Parent-Teacher Goal Setting Conferences. These will take place each day after school therefore children should be collected from school at 2.35pm and should attend the meeting with you and their teacher. However, paid activities, production and choir are still taking place.

If you have not yet signed up, please book a Parent-Teacher-Student Goal Setting Conference as soon as possible by following these instructions:

To sign-up: Click on this link Access to Conference Sign Up

Select, by clicking the boxes, for all of the teachers you’d like to see for all of your children.

Complete the ‘Student Sign-up’ page by answering the questions. Ensure you use an active email.

To activate your account: open your email from do-not-reply@ptcfast.com and click on ‘Click here to select conference time.’ Please check your ‘junk’ box if you do not receive this.

This will then take you to the booking page. Select, by clicking the box, next to one 15 minute appointment time you want for each teacher. If you would like to de-select click on the remove appointment box just below the teacher's name.

*Please note that this is a two-step process. You must sign-up and then activate your account through your email in order to book timeslots. If you have any trouble using this system please come to the Primary Office or the IT help desk in the MTB.

Many thanks. Have a great weekend, let's hope for some sun!

Week 5 Update.

Hi there,

It has been another great week here in Year 3. Firstly this week we must congratulate 3KG on their great performance in their class assembly. Not only are they the first Year 3 class to take the stage this year but they are the first class in the whole school! Well done to all.

The annual cross country running event was another highlight this week. We were proud of all of our Year 3 students who tried their best and ran very well in a long running race. How lucky we were to have a bit of sunshine that day!

There was also excitement in the classroom this week as we began our new topic about light. On Tuesday afternoon the children took part in a rotation of activities to start their minds questioning what they know, what they think they know and what they are wondering about the subject.

In Literacy the children began learning important rules for writing dialogue, including using speech marks and changing to a new line for each new speaker. You may have seen some evidence of this on their Seesaw posts this week. These posts are used to create a online portfolio of each child's learning journey and also to open up some lines of communication at home about what is happening at school. We appreciate those parents who are regularly making positive comments regarding their child's work through the Seesaw app.

In Maths, we began looking at the concept of addition. After developing a class definition we used a range of concrete materials for representing and solving sums. Through the week, children were exposed to number of possible ways to add numbers, aside from the formal written method which can be quite an abstract idea to understand. Next week we will continue developin gan understanding of addition through similar means.

There are many important notices this week, please read them carefully as some will require parental action.

Have a great weekend!

Notices

From the Library

3 Way Student-Parent-Teacher Goal Setting Conferences

Please book a Parent-Teacher-Student Goal Setting Conference as soon as possible by following these instructions:

To sign-up: Click on this link Access to Conference Sign Up

Select, by clicking the boxes, for all of the teachers you’d like to see for all of your children.

Complete the ‘Student Sign-up’ page by answering the questions. Ensure you use an active email.

To activate your account: open your email from do-not-reply@ptcfast.com and click on ‘Click here to select conference time.’ Please check your ‘junk’ box if you do not receive this.

This will then take you to the booking page. Select, by clicking the box, next to one 15 minute appointment time you want for each teacher. If you would like to de-select click on the remove appointment box just below the teacher's name.

*Please note that this is a two-step process. You must sign-up and then activate your account through your email in order to book timeslots. If you have any trouble using this system please come to the Primary Office or the IT help desk in the MTB.

Optional Cross Country Running Event

BISP will be holding a cross country event after school on Thursday 5th October.
Following on from the success of this morning, I am sure quite a few children will be keen to compete in this inter schools event.

For primary children we will have U9 and U11 races over a one mile course.

If your child would like to participate, please contact Michele Hossack or Alastair Lawson to register their name for the event.